I gave up on the idea. Not because it's a bad idea, it's great to have one text translated into so many languages and available at arms reach. But... it's the Bible and I just can't digest it. I don't want to bash Christianity here so I'll just leave it at that.

Delodephius wrote:I gave up on the idea. Not because it's a bad idea, it's great to have one text translated into so many languages and available at arms reach. But... it's the Bible and I just can't digest it. I don't want to bash Christianity here so I'll just leave it at that.

Jesus himself said "Let the ones who can accept this, accept this". What problems are you having? Did you try the book of Mark?

Well Mark 6 to 8 is OK, and as Leo Tolstoy said it's the only part of the Bible worth keeping. I just find Christianity as well as other Abrahamic faiths vastly inferior to other religions and philosophies.

Do you not find that the Bible is rather formal and unusual in register and tone? Admittedly I'm not hugely familiar with most of it (I know a lot of prayers off by heart in English and Irish, but not a lot of actual Bible quotations), but it seems to me that liturgical language isn't the type of foreign language that I'd like to learn.

Declan wrote:Do you not find that the Bible is rather formal and unusual in register and tone? Admittedly I'm not hugely familiar with most of it (I know a lot of prayers off by heart in English and Irish, but not a lot of actual Bible quotations), but it seems to me that liturgical language isn't the type of foreign language that I'd like to learn.

I was thinking of trying to use Harry Potter instead. I already got a Chinese version of all seven books.

Delodephius wrote:I was thinking of trying to use Harry Potter instead. I already got a Chinese version of all seven books.

Me too actually. I also find the Famous Five and the Three Investigators great for German (Die Fuenf Freunde, Die Drei Fragezeichen) because they are available as radio plays and relatively easy to understand. I have some Harry Potter too, hopefully I'll move on to that.

Still, I'll keep the Bible in mind. If I ever feel like reading it, I'll probably do it in a language other than English, and if I ever learn some Greek or Hebrew, I'll definitely try to read the originals.

Well being a big fan of Stoicism I plan to read their original works in Greek and Latin. I'll also try looking for translations in other languages, for example I found there is a translation of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations in Japanese.

Declan wrote:Do you not find that the Bible is rather formal and unusual in register and tone? Admittedly I'm not hugely familiar with most of it (I know a lot of prayers off by heart in English and Irish, but not a lot of actual Bible quotations), but it seems to me that liturgical language isn't the type of foreign language that I'd like to learn.

I totally agree. Especially for a language that's very different from English. I understand spoken Vietnamese pretty well, and written Vietnamese so-so, but trying to read the Bible...it may as well be Chechen.

Reading the Bible is like reading any kind of dense literature. I have enough trouble with it in English.

Tsk-Tsk. The Bible was written to be understood. Especially the New Testament! It was written in the most vernacular Greek at the time. There are PLENTY of English translations of the Bible that are a joy to read. My favorites are The New Living Translation (NLT), God's Word (GW)and the NET http://net.bible.org/bible.php